Like his team mate, H?â??lkenberg failed to better his Q2 time in Q3 and lost three places at the start, falling to 13th.

Unlike his team mate he ran a very long stint at the start – 34 laps on the super-softs, which suggested Bridgestone’s ‘extreme’ variation in tyre compounds was actually quite conservative.

His lap times had fallen off badly by the time he came in, the team realising there was no point in pitting him sooner as he would still lose the same number of places, and they hoped the safety car might make a useful appearance.

It didn’t, and he came back out of the pits in 14th, picking up one place by the end to finish within six tenths of a second of his team mate.